Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

KDE Publishes a Book For Beginner Developers

Posted by timothy on from the boil-the-water-put-in-the-packet dept.

jrepin writes "During a recent 5 day sprint, four KDE contributors planned and produced a handbook for beginning KDE developers. The guide is recommended for every new contributor to KDE development. It outlines technical aspects of contributing to KDE and is a valuable first point of contact for new developers. The guide offers insights into KDE from the developer's point of view, and explains how to check out existing code, modify it and submit patches. Currently the guide only focuses on the coding aspects of KDE. Contributors are welcome (encouraged) to expand the guide to cover other aspects of the KDE Community as well as enhance the existing content in the book. We are currently working on how to release subsequent versions."

32 comments

  1. Excellent initiative ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Large frameworks can be daunting, this is a great way to start !

  2. Good job kde! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is what most large opensource projects lack.
    Hopefully kde will lead in this front.

  3. not for new devs by X0563511 · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is not for "beginner developers" - this is for beginner kde developers - eg, developers who have not worked with KDE before.

    Don't expect to learn from nothing, you should already know how to program before you tackle this.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    1. Re:not for new devs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Don't worry, I know how to use If Then statements and Goto. I will be fine.

      Do you want the free help or not??

    2. Re:not for new devs by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Does this require that one know QT programming in advance? C programming? I know bare programming concepts, but am weak @ most programming languages.

    3. Re:not for new devs by rohangarg · · Score: 1

      For people starting with absolutely no Qt knowledge we link to the tutorials documented on the Qt site.

  4. nitty gritty by Anomalyst · · Score: 4, Informative

    89 Pages $10, seems a bit pricey. Heres the PDF URL: http://en.flossmanuals.net/_booki/kde-guide/kde-guide.pdf

    --
    There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
    1. Re:nitty gritty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hi
      The book has a markup that goes to the KDE e.V. as well. It's a great way to donate money to the KDE e.V. and get a awesome book to read in return :)

    2. Re:nitty gritty by Builder · · Score: 2

      I pay for value not length.

      I'd happily pay twice as much for a new copy of the "C Programming Language " than I would for any of those "Learn C in 24 days" books despite it being half to a quarter of the length of those books.

    3. Re:nitty gritty by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      Yea, but this is not that. It doesn't teach you everything, but it allows an already-knowledgeable programmer to jump in to the KDE project.

      Not so much a copy of "C Programming Language" as it is a "Get Started with $FRAMEWORK" book.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
    4. Re:nitty gritty by slashgrim · · Score: 1

      The web page view works better if you just want to take a look at the doc: http://en.flossmanuals.net/kde-guide/_all/

    5. Re:nitty gritty by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 1

      The pdf you linked is 49 pages, not 89.

      --
      My first program:

      Hell Segmentation fault

    6. Re:nitty gritty by Anomalyst · · Score: 1

      The dead tree listing indicated it was as 89.

      --
      There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
    7. Re:nitty gritty by rohangarg · · Score: 1

      Ah, thats because the PDF is a A4 size document whereas the actual printed book is a smaller ( 5.5" x 8.5" ).

  5. Way to bury the link by dmearns · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nice how they include the link for the "dead tree" version but the online version is much harder to find. Here it is http://en.flossmanuals.net/kde-guide/

    1. Re:Way to bury the link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've asked the dot editors to add a link in the text, hopefully this will be resolved soon, I seemed to have accidentally left out the link during the publishing of the article. Thanks for pointing it out.

    2. Re:Way to bury the link by stoolpigeon · · Score: 1

      They say it is available at FLOSS Manuals - and it's their right on the front page. I guess you could say it's harder but I wouldn't say it was hard to find. I downloaded the epub - loaded it up in calibre and mailed it to my kindle. They've done a lot to make this accessible to a wide number of people.

      --
      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    3. Re:Way to bury the link by rohangarg · · Score: 1

      Yep, Adam was a great guy to work with, they even got a Booki developer ( the platform on which the book is called booki ) to come and sit in our sessions so that we could hurl bugs at him and he fixed them in real time :D

    4. Re:Way to bury the link by dotancohen · · Score: 2

      Nice how they include the link for the "dead tree" version but the online version is much harder to find. Here it is http://en.flossmanuals.net/kde-guide/

      Nice, thanks. Here is a direct link to the PDF:
      en.flossmanuals.net/_booki/kde-guide/kde-guide.pdf

      And EPUB:
      en.flossmanuals.net/_booki/kde-guide/kde-guide.epub

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  6. How about a decent book on the API first? by Viol8 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Instead of the utterly utterly hopeless api.kde.org

  7. In defese of learn $lang in 21 days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I used learn Java in 21 days after getting my not-immediately-marketable undergraduate CS degree which was very high on theory and math but very low in practical skills.

      I *did* learn Java, it *did* take around 21 days, and now I work full time as a Java developer doing fun and interesting things. I’ve been a KDE user since 2000 and I’ve always wanted to find a way to give back. Maybe this book will get me started. . . .

  8. Feedback Welcome by rohangarg · · Score: 2

    Hi I'm Rohan Garg, one of the authors of the book. I'd like to mention that we would love feedback from people who are reading the book. How can we improve it? Don't like the artwork? Show us some awesome artwork and we'll ship it. Tell us what needs fixing and we'll work something out.

    1. Re:Feedback Welcome by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      I'd like to see how you created it - what tools and tips you have for making other large technical manuals like this.

      then I guess you need to open source the, err, source so others can contribute directly, and make their own equivalents. I know we looked into various ways of controlling our manuals that currently exist on .doc format, (yeah tell me) so I'd be interested in that aspect.

    2. Re:Feedback Welcome by rohangarg · · Score: 2

      Hi gbjbaanb We used the Booki platform which does all the heavy lifting of generating the PDF/ePub/publishing to lulu. It's quite easy to use although we found the editor to be a bit quirky and requested that the developers improve it. You can create revisions of manual just like you would in real books, you can clone existing manuals and work on them although I've been told that a way to merge changes back into a manual is coming soon ( Just like you fork code, make changes and merge it back together ). You can do all of the above and more here : http://booki.flossmanuals.net/

  9. Outdated before it's printed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And since the KDE API and Qt change faster than I change my underwear this book will likely be mostly useless by the end of the week.

    1. Re:Outdated before it's printed by X0563511 · · Score: 1

      And since the KDE API and Qt change faster than I change my underwear...

      Yea, that's a hard condition to meet. Glaciers move faster than your underwear gets changed.

      --
      For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  10. Quanta, Kooka? by JoeCommodore · · Score: 1

    Any chapters on finishing porting long overdue KDE 3 apps in there?

    --
    "Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
    1. Re:Quanta, Kooka? by rohangarg · · Score: 1

      Nope, focuses on the current git workflow, IDE's and other stuff

  11. How about a book on how to *use* KDE? by swm · · Score: 1

    How about a book on how to *use* KDE?

    I was happily using KDE 3.x.
    Then my distro went to KDE 4, and I couldn't make any sense out of it.
    I finally gave up and switched to Gnome.

    1. Re:How about a book on how to *use* KDE? by TheNinjaroach · · Score: 1

      Then my distro went to KDE 4, and I couldn't make any sense out of it.

      Yeah, but have you tried it recently? Too many distros jumped the gun on KDE4 and started using it a few releases before it was ready as a viable replacement to KDE3.

      I know that I was in the same boat as you for awhile, but after a few more releases I now find KDE4 to be better than 3 in almost every way.

      --
      I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
    2. Re:How about a book on how to *use* KDE? by rohangarg · · Score: 1

      Feel free to start one on http://booki.flossmanuals.net/ . The platform is quite good. I did think of starting such a project, but I just don't have the time to write/maitain such a book.